Progress-focused

Description of a study by Clegg et al. (2022) on the predictors and correlates of autonomous motivation and controlled motivation. In other words: how good motivation is created and what effects it has.

A growth mindset is the belief that abilities can change. Having a growth mindset is beneficial for motivation and seeking challenges. But more and more researchers are concerned about the existence of a false growth mindset. Does it indeed exist? If so, what are its meaning, causes and relevance?

A school is launching a project aimed at improving students' self-regulation skills. The aim is that students learn to concentrate better, to persevere in the face of adversity, and to use various strategies to achieve their goals. Over time, researchers find that the learning performance of the students improves on average. So the project appears to be a success. However, to their surprise, they also see that the students do not feel that their self-regulation skills have improved. The school management and the researchers are scratching their heads. What is going on here? A publication by Lira et al. (2022) offers an explanation.

There are two new publications on the effects of growth mindset interventions. The two articles analyze the same research literature via meta-analyses but draw completely different conclusions. Macnamara & Burgoyne (2022) argue that growth mindset interventions hardly work; Burnette et al. (2022) found positive effects on academic outcomes, mental health, and social functioning. How can this be? There is a simple and important explanation described in an article by Tipton et al. (2022).

It seems logical: when you come to new insights, you are happy. But it is often a bit more complicated. It often happens that we can have mixed feelings when we come to a new insight. How is that possible? 

Mindset interventions can help students change their beliefs about themselves and their experiences in their studies. They can help students develop a learning mindset that makes them believe they can be successful, fit in, and that the education is relevant to them. Until now, mindset interventions in studies have not focused on the context of a specific study (e.g. biology). In addition, the interventions were usually designed and delivered by psychologists. A new study ( Hecht et al., 2022 ) used an approach of modified peer-modeled mindset interventions.